[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
On Tuesday 29 May 2007 00:05, Ben Goodger wrote: > > > Mark (who was campaigning against nuclear power in the 1970's) > > On what grounds? Give me one example of a nuclear accident that could > possibly happen again, today, in the absence of extreme incompetence and > horrifying deregulation *cough*soviet_ukraine*cough*. I still favour good > old geothermal energy, though :) > Ignore accidents for now - think about disposal of waste. What do we do with that? There have been issues in both the USA (Three Mile Island) and the UK (Windscale,which was renamed to Sellafield to try to lose the bad reputation). Any technology - no matter how good - has risks. The risk of a problem at a nuclear power station is far greater than any other form of power generation - a risk which can affect an untold number of people all around the world. Then of course, there is the (admittedly very small) risk of material falling into the wrong hands. To be honest, I think that is over-rated, but it still exists. I can see the argument that nuclear power is "cleaner" in some ways, but feel that money would be better spent on research/development of other forms of generation such as wind, solar and - as you say, geothermal. The comment about injuries to birds from wind turbines is a fair one - that would worry me, but I suspect that methods to minimise those injuries can be devised. I too agree that our own carbon emissions are probably not having a lot of effect on the environment - my concern about fossil fuels is that they are going to run out. We need a viable alternative (or range of them) before that happens. Mark -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html